Italy: Restaurant Fires Server for Printing Antigay Slur on Check

A group of four gay men in Italy got more than a bill when the check for their meals arrived — reports say the waiter actually printed a warning that the table contained 'faggots' on the receipt.

BY Thom Senzee

August 27 2014 1:55 PM ET

Four gay men in Italy say they won't be dining again at the restaurant where a waiter reportedly keyed in an antigay slur apparently "warning" others that the customers were gay.

The phrase, printed among a line-item listing of food the table ordered, read, "I warn you, they're faggots," and was delivered to the men, according to a rough translation at U.S. LGBT blog Towleroad.

"We went to the owner of the restaurant to ask for an explanation," one of the men told Italian-language site, Brindisioggi. "He was speechless and apologized on behalf of the waiter. The next day he contacted us to apologize again and to say that the waiter had been dismissed. But we will not be back in that place again."

But antigay slurs hurled at customers aren't a uniquely European phenomenon. A Taco John's in South Dakota made headlines recently when a teenage employee at the eatery claims he was forced to wear a name badge with the word "gaytard" emblazoned on it.

Meanwhile, in separate incidents, restaurateurs in Oklahoma and Arkansas recently refused to serve LGBT clientele. The Oklahoma homophobe proudly announced that his establishment does not serve "freaks" and "faggots" on a local news report, while the Arkansas establishment first accepted a reservation from a group then canceled it upon realizing the reservation was for an LGBT fundraiser. Ironically, the latter restaurant owner likened the LGBT group to the Ku Klux Klan.